COVID-19: Nigeria records lowest daily figure in four months

NIGERIA yesterday recorded 138 coronavirus cases, lowest daily tally in almost four months of the pandemic in the country.

  The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) disclosed this yesterday during update on the pandemic; saying,  that the latest daily figure brings the total number of infected persons in the West African nation to 53, 865.

  The data also suggested that Africa’s most populous nation may be flattening the COVID-19 pandemic curve, with the dropping of figures below 300 in the past one week.

  It will be recalled that the last time Nigeria recorded a lower weekly figure was the 1,470 cases recorded in the week between May 10 and May 16, according to NCDC data.

  The daily figure recorded on Friday and Sunday – 160 and 138 respectively were the lowest tally since early May and late April.

  The country has also improved a bit in its testing regime. More than 400, 000 of Nigeria’s 200 million people have been tested thus far.

  According to NCDC’s report, the new cases, were found in 14 states, which are; Plateau 55, Lagos 15, Ebonyi, eleven, Oyo, eleven, Abia, eight, Anambra, seven, FCT, seven, Rivers, seven, Kaduna, six, Ondo, five, Kwara, three, Bauchi, one, Benue, one , Edo, one.

  For the fifth consecutive day, Plateau has had the highest number of new cases with 55 infections on Thursday. Lagos and Ebonyi followed with 15 and 11 cases respectively.

  Lagos remains Nigeria’s COVID-19 hotspot with over 18,000 infections and 202 deaths.

  Abuja, Nigeria’s capital is the second most impacted with a total of over 5,000 cases and 50 deaths.

  Two deaths were recorded on yesterday, dragging the total number of deaths from the virus to 1,013.

  The NCDC in its daily update of the infection on its verified Twitter handle @NCDCgov stated that out of the over 53,000 infections so far, 41, 513 persons have recovered and have been discharged.

  Nigeria is the third most impacted country in Africa with South Africa recording the highest number of COVID-19 cases on the continent.

  So far, in over one billion population in Africa, over 1.2 million infections have been recorded.